Trying to mount a drive on my VM that is not part of the VM's datastore...please help!

[Cyandin]

Hello all,

I have ESXi 4.0 installed on my server and one of my four VM's is an instance of Debian Lenny. My VM's reside on a 2x1.5TB Raid-1 based datastore. I have an additional SATA drive connected to my server (It resides in one of the 8 hotswap bays in the server) that I would like to mount to this Debian VM.

Where do I make it so the VM can detect and subsequently mount this drive? I've been researching the vSphere manual with no luck yet.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Cyandin]

It shows up here, but I can't seem to get it to be visible to my VM.

[AndreTheGiant]

As you see from the partition type of your disk, it was Linux formatted.

So your VM are from VMware Server or Workstation format?

Cause ESXi cannot mount Linux filesystem, I suggest to connect your disk to a Linux box, share the file with samba, and use VMware Standalone Converter to import to your ESXi.

Andre

[Cyandin]

Andre,

Ahh, I see. Well, the gist of what I'm trying to do here is simply be able to remove the files from this drive. My home server is the one running ESXi, and it's four VM's are Debian, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris and Win2008. I thought the fastest way to access the data (mostly music and movies) on this Linux formatted drive (that was formerly a storage drive from an older dedicated Debian box of mine, would be to do what I've been trying.

I have a SATA to USB converter cable that can allow me to simply remove my hotswap drive from the server, and reconnect it to the server via USB. If I were to do that, would I be able to get any of my VM's to recognize the drive as a USB device?

[AndreTheGiant · Accepted solution]

ESXi has several limitation (due to the limited service console).

So you do not have USB support in the hidden console, you cannot read NTFS and Linux filesystem (no module in the kernel), and so on...

Also ESX and ESXi are not able (yet) to virtualize USB device, so you cannot mount your disk in a VM.

I suggest to use another system (Linux or also Windows with a ext2/ext3 browser).

Andre

[Cyandin]

Andre,

I am recovering the files using DiskInternals Linux Reader 1.1 now. Thank you very much for your help!

It is unfortunate though, that I have realized these limitations of VMware. I hope that we will soon see virtualized USB support and the ability to mount Linux filesystems in the next release. please read this, developers

Have a great day, everyone!

[AndreTheGiant]

It is unfortunate though, that I have realized these limitations of VMware

Some are limitation of ESXi, cause for example full ESX can mount linux filesystem, and also USB drive (in the service console).

But both cannot virtualize (yet) a USB device and give to a guest.

Andre

[Cyandin]

Hmm, I didn't realize ESXi was lightened on the features side of things in that way.

Do you know if there are plans to support virtualized USB devices for guest VM's yet?

[AndreTheGiant]

I didn't realize ESXi was lightened on the features side of things in that way.

Only the console features are limited.

The vmkernel is the same, and the ESXi enterprise could have all vmkernel feature of normal ESX.

Do you know if there are plans to support virtualized USB devices for guest VM's yet?

Nothing official... at this point a first step is realized: the USB controller could be virtualized... next step is virtualize also the attached device

Andre